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Parliament passed an Act that would be against witchcraft. If anyone claimed to have magical powers they would be fined or imprisoned.
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Under the Parliament Vagrancy Act fortune-telling, astrology, and spiritualism would now become a punishable.
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Gerald Brosseau Gardner is the main trace back to wicca. He was fascinated by many different indigenous religions and western esoteric literature.
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When he had arrived back in Britain he started becoming more involved in the in the British occult community.
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Gerald Brosseau Gardner had claimed to have seen witches practicing near England's New Forest. He supposed that their teachings was the provided basis of Wicca. However historians dispute about whether the group of witches ever existed to begin with.
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The Act against witchcraft was repealed by the Fraudulent Mediums Act. So now anyone can freely claim claim to be psychic, medium, or other spiritualists.
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When Gerald returned to England he soon joined the British occult community and published a book called "Witchcraft Today". Soon after he had grown a group of followers. The assistant high priestess named Doreen Valiente then developed what was known as "Gardnerian Wicca".
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Ever since Gardner's writings other occultists and other witchcraft writings and started to create their own Wiccan practices and traditions. They all mostly claimed to be practicing under pre-Christian witchcraft religions.
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As wicca grew it stared to spread internationally and very much so in the Untied States through the 1960's and 1970's. Wicca started becoming influential through new social movements. Ex:
In 1971, during second-wave feminism Dianic Wicca was born by Hungarian émigré Zsuzsanna Budapest. It was a woman tradition placing central focus on the goddess.
In 1977, during gay rights movement the Minoan Brotherhood was born by Eddie Buczynski. Their wiccan tradition was to celebrate gay and bisexual men. -
Wiccans helped play a role in establishing organizations to defend Neo-Pagan civil rights. They fought against the confusion of wiccans being called Satanists and that they would be dangerous admin the Satanic ritual abuse panic of 1980's-1990's
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When Wicca's religion started to become more publicly known a couple of films started to be made, "The Craft"(1966), "Buffy The Vampire Slayer"(1979-2003), and "Charmed"(1998-2008). This Popularity had grown in the media by teenage Wiccan subculture from 1990'2 to 2000's.